PW Shanghai Major 2024 American RMR: Announcement and Preview

In less than a week, the PW Shanghai 2024 American RMR, which will be held from November 12 to 15 in Shanghai, begins. The tournament will draw 7 slots for the main stage of the future Major.

The qualifying tournament will feature 16 teams from North and South America battling for a coveted spot in the main tournament of the year. So, now, let's take a closer look at the tournament!

Team Participants

A total of 16 teams will participate in the American RMR, 8 of which received direct invites based on Valve's rankings, the rest of the teams passed the North and South American closed qualifications.

The North American region will be represented by:

• Team Liquid
• Complexity Gaming
• M80
• Wildcard
• Nouns
• BOSS

Among the South American representatives are:

• FURIA
• Legacy
• BESTIA
• Case
• paiN Gaming
• MIBR
• 9z
• Imperial
• KRÜ Esports
• Red Canids

It is worth noting that the upcoming RMR will feature a large number of newcomers and “mystery teams” with whom there may be difficulties. First of all, we are talking about BESTIA and Legacy, which from time to time demonstrate quite a good game. The main contenders for passage to the main stage of the major can be called: Furia, MIBR, Liquid, Complexity, M80, Imperial and 9z.

As for the outsiders, KRÜ Esports and Case Esports are very likely to finish with a score of 0-3, the other teams may well struggle.

Main Rules and Format

Qualification will be conducted in Swiss Stage format. All matches, except for the elimination and promotion matches will be played in bo1 format, the rest in bo3. The Buchholz system is used to seed matches from Round 3 to 5. After all the final results, the Top-7 teams will make it to the Opening Stage of PW Shanghai Major 2024, while the remaining 9 will be left with nothing.

Matches Schedule

The tournament begins Nov. 12 and runs through Nov. 15 in an offline format in Shanghai. Rounds 1 and 2 of the competition will start on November 12, where High and Low matches will be determined during the first results. On November 13th the Low matches of Round 3 will be played, on November 14th Round 4 Low and High, and on November 15th the decider matches will be presented including the match for the last slot, the 7th Place Match.

12 November - Swiss Round 1 and Round 2 in bo1

13 November - Swiss Round 3 in bo1 and bo3 formats

14 November - Swiss Round 4 in bo3

15 November - Swiss Round 5 and 7th Place Decider Match in bo3

Preliminary overview and analysis

We propose to briefly analyze possible scenarios for the future American RMR.

Let's start with the favorites. The top 5 main favorites are definitely Furia, Team Liquid, Complexity, Pain and MIBR. All four teams have been showing pretty good performance this year. Liquid and Complexity are obviously going through a serious crisis on the Tier-1 scene and it was noticeable, considering their nervous performances against not the strongest teams. Nevertheless, the American organizations are still trying to balance on the Top level and getting to the Major is a chance to start all over again, considering that the other opponents have much less experience playing on the Top level and are not ready for such a serious leap yet.

I would like to single out two Brazilian teams, MIBR and Pain, who are not to be trifled with. Both teams are very unpredictable and can be a serious problem for Complexity or Liquid. Special attention should be paid to the main top-fragers of the teams insani and snow, who will look for any way to make an entry-frag. MIBR placed 3rd at this year's ESL Pro League Season 20 and also won RES Latin American Series #3. Analyzing the recent results of the Brazilian team, we can conclude that young players have strengthened the new MIBR roster and the team is progressing again, which was not the case a few years ago. Therefore, it is worth to keep a close eye on Pain and Mibr and take into account their good first of all moral preparation.

Speaking of Liquid and Complexity, these teams may well finish RMR with 3-0, but I would not be 100% so sure, the same MIBR inspires more confidence than Liquid and Complexity.

M80, a team that is very surprising this year. Its lightning success on the American regional scene, total domination and breakthrough on the Tier-1 scene is inspiring. We must admit that the team has stability problems and it happens often that M80 can't beat a weaker opponent because of wrong attitude and maybe not high enough individual level, but we are sure that at RMR the team will be focused on 100 percent and will try their best to show a worthy result and their passage to the Major may become a record and sensation for the American region. The probability that M80 will finish RMR with the score 3-0 is not great, but the fact that they will be able to pass from the 6-7th place is a very real scenario.

Now let's take a look at the outsiders of the tournament. There is no doubt that KRÜ Esports, Boss and Case, are the absolute outsiders of the tournament, especially the Argentine organization. Yes, all three teams managed to make it to RMR, but it was quite difficult. The only ones from this list who are likely to get at least one win are Boss. In a nutshell, BOSS is a team that doesn't play and doesn't let others play. They are the middle of the Tier-2/3 American scene, they finish mostly in the Top 8 at ECL Challenger, beating even weaker opponents, but from time to time they can put up a fight against decent teams like M80.

There is nothing to say about KRÜ and Case, both teams are in a terrible state and even on their local scene perform badly, so the chances to take at least one win are slim. For KRÜ, this is the debut RMR, so it's not worth criticizing the team, because the very fact of getting to RMR is already a good achievement, but it's too early to talk about some more serious successes, because the team is “very raw”.

Conclusion

To summarize, we would like to say that this year's American RMR is going to be a very interesting competition indeed and we highly recommend watching this RMR. I assure you, you will not regret it!

Enjoy and follow the RMR tournaments and PW Shanghai Major 2024 with us.